Mark H. Paul BA’87 is the new executive director of the University of Utah Health Center for Medical Innovation. A fourth-generation U grad, Paul was previously president of the neurovascular division at Stryker Neurovascular based in Fremont, California. He is an industry pioneer in the development of microtools used in brain surgery.
Michael Kirklen BS’88 established the Michael Kirklen Scholarship, which is offered to a recipient of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Leadership Awards, a U co-sponsored honor recognizing outstanding middle and high school students statewide for actively contributing to their communities. Kirklen is CEO of Blooming Property Management & Lodging and Second Home Mike.
Heidi Czerwiec PhD’02 has the collection Crafting the Lyric Essay: Strike a Chord forthcoming in 2024 from Bloomsbury Press. Czerwiec was a professor and writing conference director at the University of North Dakota for 12 years before absconding to write and teach in Minneapolis, where she is now a senior editor for Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. Her prior work includes four poetry chapbooks, the full-length poetry collection Conjoining, and the lyric essay collection Fluid States, winner of Pleiades Press’ 2018 Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose. Recent work appears in Brevity, Superstition Review, Waxwing, and River Teeth, and in the anthologies A Harp in the Stars, Nasty Women Poets, and New Poetry from the Midwest.
Jessica R. Kramer HBS’04, a U biomedical engineering assistant professor, is one of four national recipients of the 2022-23 Marion Milligan Mason Award. A biannual honor bestowed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the prestigious award is given to promising early-career women in the chemical sciences. Kramer also holds an adjunct assistant professorship in molecular pharmaceutics.
John Willis BS’05 is the new city manager of St. George. Willis was previously community development director for the city and has over 17 years of experience in land use, planning, and zoning.
Ashley Magnus MBA’13 is the executive director of the Acorn Center for the Performing Arts in Three Oaks, Michigan. Magnus has worked at the Chicago Opera Theater and began her career at the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera as a production coordinator for the opera department. In 2019, she was named one of Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals in the Performing Arts.
Carly Nelson BS’19 is the new goalkeeper for the Orlando Pride soccer team. Nelson played on the U’s soccer team, earning All Pac-12 honors during her senior year. Prior to Orlando, she had most recently played with FC Nordsjælland of the Danish top-flight.
Award-winning mezzo-soprano Mandi Barrus MMU’19 recently visited the Blinn College District choir in Texas for two concerts along with a master class for the college’s choral students. Barrus runs an independent opera company in Utah and is a recent winner of Utah Opera’s AriaFest and the U’s Concerto Competition.
Hannah Peterson MS’20 was named a Young Geospatial Professional to Watch in 2023 by xyHt, a magazine for geospatial professionals. Peterson works at Aero-Graphics, where her focus is aviation. Peterson’s role includes helping hire and train new employees, execute flights, and more. As a graduate research assistant at the U, she focused on measuring snowpack depth by using motion remote sensing.
Major Peter Saunders PhD’20 was recently recognized as Air Education and Training Command’s Weather Field Grade Officer of the Year. Saunders is currently serving as an assistant professor for the Air Force Institute of Technology’s atmospheric science program.
Aathaven Tharmarajah BFA’22 recently starred as Emmett Forrest in the national tour of Legally Blonde The Musical. Tharmarajah is an actor and performing artist based in New York City. Originally from the Bay Area in California, he grew up performing in choirs and has always loved singing. As a performer, he says his passion for storytelling “comes from a joy and need to reach others’ hearts and provoke reflective thinking through honesty and vulnerability.”
Chloe Carr BS’22 completed her bachelor’s degree in marketing in December (after just two and a half years) before becoming the U’s 2023 student commencement speaker. She recalls, “In school, I was challenged beyond what I believed I was capable of and pushed out of my comfort zone into that space where I’ve been told growth happens.” She is now a communications specialist at Korn Ferry Institute, an innovation center focused on illuminating key trends and drivers of human and organizational performance.
Katya Podkovyroff Lewis BS’23 recounts that during her very first semester at the U, “I got my first taste of lab work and fell in love.” A few summers later, she joined her first field research experience and realized, “I could get paid to camp in the forest and do science at the same time.” She says, “Exploring the outdoors and daydreaming of how everything was connected was what fueled my childhood. Learning that I could do the same thing as a job was euphoric.” Her next step is to attend the University of Oregon as an NSF graduate research fellow, pursuing a doctorate in biology.
Janice Darko DDS’23, an immigrant from Ghana, used some of her time at the U’s Dental School to create the Black & Art Dental Student Association to help showcase her and other students’ artistic sides, heritage, and culture; to build community; and more. In addition to academic pursuits (previous studies have included biochemistry and nutritional science), Darko has been a member of the U.S. Navy Reserve for more than 11 years.
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